


Transience

by Xairathan



Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Fate/type Redline
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21922021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xairathan/pseuds/Xairathan
Relationships: Oda Nobunaga | Archer/Okita Souji | Sakura Saber
Comments: 1
Kudos: 47





	Transience

It is 1945, and a bloodied Saber stands before her. The white triangles on the edges of her blue haori are thoroughly red, more so from Nobunaga’s blood than her own. The remnants of her comrades, dissipating in wisps of golden smoke, twinkle in a sky riddled with burning embers. Like Saber, Nobunaga’s fire is on its last legs. 

Nobunaga could kill Saber, if she chose to. She has plenty of energy left after their duel; Saber looks as though she can hardly keep standing. She sways unsteadily as the shadows lurching beneath her, on the verge of falling. Nobunaga doesn’t want to see her fall. She’s known from fighting Saber so many times that honor is what Saber holds above everything else, and that no victor deserves to be on their knees in the dirt. _Looks like you’ve won this time_ , Nobunaga tells her. _The wish upon the Grail is yours— use it well!_

(The Saber’s name is Okita Souij.)

In Chaldea, the year before a new decade, Okita falters in her steps. Her hands cover her mouth, but can’t stop the blood from leaking between her fingers. Nobunaga is at her side in an instant. She catches Okita before her legs can give entirely, holding her up off the ground. Okita begins to protest. It’s the start of a familiar song and dance. She doesn’t need Nobunaga’s assistance. She’s fine on her own. Really, they’ve known each other for longer than this; shouldn’t Nobunaga be used to this by now?

Of course Nobunaga is used to this. She’s seen Okita fall more times than she can count by now. Still, each time, Nobunaga worries; Nobunaga cares. She finds it more comforting to grasp Okita and bear the weight of her body and her protests than to let Okita struggle alone. She wonders if Okita feels the same way.

In a cramped room in a place that does not exist in time, Okita’s body melds naturally to fit against Nobunaga’s. Nobunaga is shorter, but she’s nearly level with Okita when she’s sitting astride in her lap. They drink the other in with gazes and touches, whispered words of affection. The last time they’d seen each other was in a room twice the size of this one, watching themselves fade into an unnatural golden light. When Nobunaga had been resummoned, she’d gone right away to find Okita. She’d tangled herself up in Okita’s arms and scarf, kissed her breathless, every meeting of their lips accompanied by _Nobu_ murmured from Okita’s. Nobunaga has heard her name in so many ways; shouted at her over the clashing of metal and whispered in the secrecy of their room with a devotion Okita reserves solely for her. 

Chaldea: they are meeting for the first time since Tokyo. Okita whispers her name, low and disbelieving. Her eyes shine with something akin to relief. It is the first time Nobunaga has ever seen such a look directed at herself. She knows: Okita, of all people, would not take well to being called to an unfamiliar place. Even someone such as Nobunaga would be welcome over the stifling fear of enduring this new reality alone.

Okita is not alone. She’s surrounded not by Nobunaga’s fire, but by a sea of Shinsengumi blue. A score of katanas reflect the dancing light back at Nobunaga. For all of Nobunaga’s skill and determination, this is something she cannot overcome. Okita, her body shielded by those of her comrades, sinks her sword into Nobunaga’s shoulder. There is no triumph in her eyes, only the same cold resolve with which Okita approaches every battlefield. It is the only time Nobunaga sees Okita’s comrades, until Hijikata steps out from the summoning circle a lifetime later.

In their new and tight-packed futon, Okita confesses the truth to Nobunaga. It’s no secret; Nobunaga’s suspected it for some time: Okita’s afraid. The same worry had kept her back from Nobunaga, too. It’s always the same fear, that Okita hasn’t done enough to deserve to see them again. Nobunaga knows better than to chide Okita for having a Noble Phantasm she doesn’t dare to use. She lets Okita whisper into her shoulder until her eyelids tire and her worries become as intangible as the ghosts she speaks of. She cradles Okita’s head against the crook of her neck, and imagines they’re back in the capital.

It is the one sunny day in Chaldea when Nobunaga realizes the long-untasted pangs of love. Okita is by the window, palms and forehead pressed against the glass. She’s looking over the cliffside, at the sheer drop down the mountain Chaldea stands perched upon. Nobunaga joins her there. She looks up rather than down: at Okita, skin flush with genuine sunlight, eyes shining with excitement. Unconsciously, Nobunaga lifts her hand. It rests gently atop Okita’s. Okita looks at her, puzzled, stunned. She doesn’t know what this means. She hadn’t lived long enough to experience these feelings, and had no interest in them anyway. Nobunaga smiles back at her. For now, this doesn’t need to mean anything. It’s simply Nobunaga reaching out to bridge the gap between their friendship and their rivalry.

What Okita calls their destined connection is born on the Red Line. Nobunaga, drenched in blood and reveling in the hunt; Okita, tired of its scent, intimately familiar with its iron stain. As they bring their weapons to bear, their eyes meet. There should be no link between them other than that of two foes about to fight to the death. Nobunaga laughs, and Okita, for the first time, grows uneasy. The only ones who’d laughed as she did were Hijikata and Serizawa, the maddest of Mibu’s wolves, but Nobunaga’s gaze holds no such thing. She simply loves to fight. In the end, Nobunaga loses, waving farewell to Okita from a pillar of smoking gold. The bitterness on Okita’s tongue is not because she doesn’t want to see Nobunaga go. She’s realized what must have been obvious to Nobunaga, the reason she’d laughed so much. She and Okita are opposite ends of the same spectrum; if not for their times and their duties, each could have been the other. 

So it’s only natural they meet. It’s inevitable that Okita stays close to Nobunaga, clinging to the bond they’d forged on that fiery battlefield. When Nobunaga draws her in, Okita’s hesitation holds her back. It is the only thing still left between them. Nobunaga doesn’t press her— doesn’t say anything at all. She doesn’t mention the way Okita presses back against her when they share a futon, hands holding Nobunaga’s in place around her waist. She doesn’t say anything even when Okita leans down into her, eyes searching for any hint to be found in Nobunaga’s, reaching for something tangible to put to rest the thousand questions whirling in her heart. 

Nobunaga's lips brush Okita's. The sun crests the horizon of the Sea of Imaginary Numbers. Through the Shadow Border's windows, it crests the air around them and between them. It throws long shadows up against the walls, and rare golden light beneath them. Its subtle warmth joins the resonating heat of Nobunaga's fingers enclosed over Okita's. 

It is 1945, and Nobunaga's hands burn hotter than the fire around them. They play along Okita's tasuki, winding it like matchlock cord between her fingers, tugging Okita closer. Nobunaga is inescapable. Neither of them know it, but Okita is already caught. The destined connection that Okita will feel between them is forged in the burning ruins of Tokyo and the Red Line, their winding string of fate. 

And in Chaldea, they are kissing, too— Okita's first kiss, lead by Nobunaga, her fingers curled along Okita's jawline and tracing the slant of her collarbone towards her heart. Okita doesn't know what to do. Her hands find Nobunaga's coat, its lapels, clinging to them with delicate uncertainty. It's unlike Okita. Her hands are coarse and meant for the surety of swordplay. Nobunaga takes them up, as she does now, giving Okita something to hold on to. Their kiss is clumsy and brief; it is long and measured and sweet. It is a snapshot lived in infinite moments; Okita and Nobunaga, their souls dancing in the light of Nobunaga's fire, their thousand separate shadows joined in one inevitability.


End file.
